BBC fears its staff are being targeted after Moscow attacks

The BBC is investigating the possibility that three of its staff who were beaten up in Moscow last week had been targeted because of their work for the corporation.

The BBC World Service said it was extremely concerned by the attacks on the men, which happened in separate incidents before Russia's parliamentary elections on Sunday, won by Vladimir Putin's United Russia party.

Davlat Qudrat, a Russian producer who works for the BBC's Central Asian Service, was assaulted on November 24 on his way home from the BBC's Moscow bureau.

A BBC producer, Mikhail Denisov, was attacked near his home on November 25 and suffered a broken nose.

In the latest attack a BBC studio manager, Yevgeny Demchenko, suffered head injuries on Friday when he was assaulted on his way home from work.

"Although we have no evidence to suggest that the attacks were motivated by the victims' employment by the BBC, we are exploring that possibility," a World Service spokesman said. "We have asked the Russian foreign ministry for assistance in ensuring staff safety."

The attacks appear to be the latest episode in a semi-official campaign of harassment and intimidation in Russia against British targets. On Monday and Tuesday activists from a pro-Kremlin youth group staged a picket outside the BBC and in August the Kremlin shut down the BBC Russian Service's FM frequency, severely limiting the BBC's ability to broadcast to its key Moscow audience.

The Kremlin's action came weeks after David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, expelled four Russian diplomats in protest at Moscow's refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the former KGB agent who is suspected of killing the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko.

The attacks may have been linked to the BBC's coverage of demonstrations in Moscow by The Other Russia, the anti-Kremlin coalition led by the ex-world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Russia's state-controlled television stations refuse to show interviews with Kasparov or any members of his liberal opposition movement.